ESPN RADIO HOST TAKES A HUGE RISK WITH WHITLOCK

In response to the whole Don Imus affair, Kansas City Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock had this to say in his recent column: (Hat tip: dcthornton)

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

Strong stuff. And as you might have guessed, Jason Whitlock is black, but there's more to the story. Whitlock used to be a commentator on ESPN, appearing on The Sports Reporters and PTI. However, he was fired from the network for insulting sportwriters Mike Lupica and Scoop Jackson. Despite being essentially banned from the ESPN networks, ESPN Radio host Colin Cowherd (who I've admired for a long time) took a big career risk today by preempting his usual "spanning the globe" segment and having Jason Whitlock on the show to discuss the Don Imus situation.

No transcript is available, but Whitlock unloaded on Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and chastised people in the black community who allow themselves to be affected by people like Don Imus who should have no effect on their lives whatsoever. It was great radio and it was stuff that needed to be said to a mass audience. Here's hoping Colin Cowherd doesn't get into too much trouble with the ESPN brass.